Touts
Reality isn’t always on offer in “The Hangover” writers and “Bad Moms” filmmakers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore’s latest chaotic comedy. Wild high-jinks unfold at a steady clip, and our stars behave badly, frequently, in front of stone-faced background actors who never bat an eyelash, even when four middle-aged women are staging a full brawl in the middle of a luxury beachside hotel lobby. No one seems bothered that nearly everyone has an Aussie accent, despite this film ostensibly unfolding 100 miles away from Los Angeles (the film was shot in Queensland). And, for all the glitz and glamour of said luxury beachside hotel, no one ever even mentions going into the ocean.
And yet, Lucas and Scott aren’t afraid of occasionally dipping into not just realistic problems, but heavier ones, too. Their gals are snorting lines of blow and humping male strippers one minute, attempting to unpack their deep-seated anger and need for therapy the next. Their “Bad Moms” films tread similar paths: wacky comedic set pieces interspersed with genuinely heartfelt ruminations about how hard it is to be a modern woman run ragged by the demands of “having it all.”
Fans of those films (including this writer, who almost forgot how much she liked the first film) will surely enjoy this one, which also boasts an extremely talented (and quite game) all-star cast, including Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Michelle Buteau, and Anna Faris. That central foursome hold “Spa Weekend” together, even when it goes, often worryingly, off the rails. A relaxing trip to the spa this is not, which was presumably the quick pitch that got this baby rolling to begin with. What if mud baths, but also mayhem? Your milage will vary based on how that concept lands with you.
Introduced via a Mann-led voiceover, we’re shown the gals’ early years together, with their tight-knit friendship beginning in middle school. That’s also where their personalities were seemingly sealed in amber, and when we pick back up with them in middle age, their major defining characteristics have only become more pronounced. (One hanging question, however, is exactly how and when Fisher’s wild child Mel became the group’s punching bag, not just its most unpredictable member.)
At a slim 97 minutes, the film’s script (also by Lucas and Moore) doesn’t have much room for those bigger backstories or to fill any yawning gaps. Instead, the story relies on putting each of its women in a designated box: Mann’s Jane is the workaholic with too many commitments (and we will never learn what happened to her never-mentioned ex), Faris’ Sophie is a human doormat at the mercy of her moronic boss (she has a family, but they’re never seen and only referred to broadly as “my husband” or “my son”), and Fisher’s Mel is a crazy person (full stop, any deeper exploration of her neuroses and pathologies is not to be found here). Buteau’s Coco makes off with a bit more meat on the bone, though her messy divorce, complicated relationship with her ex, and profound rage are too often leaned on as our Big! Dramatic! Storyline!
While Jane, Sophie, and Coco have stayed tight, Mel is in the wind, which makes the trio’s decision to splash out on a very necessary luxury weekend for Jane’s birthday, sans Mel, all the easier. Too bad then that Sophie is such a softie, secretly inviting the whirling dervish to their two days of rest and relaxation. When Mel arrives, all hell breaks loose, but at least the perpetually charming Fisher is up for the task of playing someone who is both completely annoying and totally winning.
Jane, Sophie, and Coco might have been looking for an easy weekend, but Mel is hellbent on making it a wild one. Here she is propositioning handsome yoga instructor Kai (Adam Demos) for Jane, there she is screeching at Sophie’s deranged boss (and getting her fired in the process). She even cooks up a scheme to get Coco’s ex-husband Roger (Dominic Ona-Ariki) into the mix. There are strippers to order, coke to snort, and a goat yoga experience to really fuck up. Every other guest of the resort should get a full refund, post-haste.
But what does that matter in the wilds of such nutty comedy? Moore and Lucas are weirdly tuned into that question, however, as the film also builds in a subplot about the resort’s “general manager/guru” Shanti (Erika Heynatz) doing her damndest to evict the world’s worst guests, with some actual consequences, sorta. But that blend of raucous laughs (OK, well, some raucous laughs, some mere attempts at them) and real world concerns makes for an uneasy watch, ping-ponging between moods and tones in unpredictable ways.
Always reliable, however, is the star power on offer here. Mann, Fisher, Buteau, and Faris make for not only funny foils for each other (and they all excel at those aforementioned personality boxes), but also believable life-long friends, with all the fraught undercurrents that implies. Even when they’re doing the wackiest things imaginable — stealing golf carts and saving out-of-date computer operating systems, vigorously riding strippers and slapping each other in public spaces, and more outrageously weird vignettes, oh my — they’re wonderfully watchable and genuinely hilarious together. They just deserve a better movie to contain them.
Grade: C
Black Bear will release “Spa Weekend” in theaters on Friday, August 21.